Monthly Archives: March 2012

Connections: The Australian Historical Association 31st Annual Conference – Call For Papers

Connections
The Australian Historical Association 31st Annual Conference
9-13 July, 2012
University of Adelaide, South Australia

Conference Website

The 2012 AHA Annual Conference will be held at the North Terrace campus of the University of Adelaide. Established in 1874 the University of Adelaide is Australia’s 3rd oldest university, and is situated on Adelaide’s main cultural boulevard, close to the heart of the city and on the edge of its renowned parklands.

We are interested in proposals for papers and panels exploring historical connections – past, present and future. The conference seeks to explore the myriad ways in which human societies have connected over past centuries, and the ways these interactions in time, space and cultures inform present historical debate. We welcome papers from historians of all times and places.

Please note, the Religious History Association, Australian Women’s History Network, and Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions will all be running strands at the AHA conference. For more details see the online call for papers.

All abstracts must be submitted on-line and should not exceed 300 words. For details on how to submit abstracts, and on funding opportunities for postgraduate students and independent historians please visit the AHA conference website: http://www.theaha.org.au/connections

Submission of Abstracts opens: January 23rd 2012
Close for Submission of Abstracts: March 30th 2012
Notification to Abstract submitters: April 28th 2012

Editing Early Texts: Practice and Protocol – Call For Papers

Editing Early Texts: Practice and Protocol
15-16 June 2012
Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Symposium Website

This symposium is for scholars and postgraduate students involved in the editing of early literary and non-literary texts. ‘Early’ is being interpreted quite broadly, c. 1500-1800, and speakers so far have editing interests in Shakespeare and early modern drama, early modern poetry and prose, eighteenth-century fiction, early modern women’s writing and early modern historical texts. Papers on the digital humanities and online editing are also strongly encouraged.

The symposium ties in with a number of editing projects with a Massey connection. One is Sarah Ross’s edition of Women Poets of the English Civil War (with Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, University of Oxford). Sarah is also working on Australian Research Council discovery project, The Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing: Editing, Reception and Mediation, run by Rosalind Smith at the University of Newcastle, creating an online archive of selected early modern women’s texts. Other current Massey editing projects are Ingrid Horrocks’ edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and Karen Jillings’ edition of the medical tracts of Scottish physician Gilbert Skene.

Keynote Speaker:

Professor Salzman, La Trobe University, is a Chief Investigator on The Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing: Editing, Reception, Mediation. He is the editor of the innovative online edition of Lady Mary Wroth (http://wroth.latrobe.edu.au/); and of two Oxford World’s Classics editions, Early Modern Women’s Writing, and An Anthology of Elizabethan Prose Fiction.

Speakers include:

  • Tom Bishop (Auckland, Internet Shakespeare)
  • Karen Jillings (Massey, editing Gilbert Skene)
  • Ingrid Horrocks (Massey, editing Wollstonecraft’s A Short Residence)
  • Brett Hirsch (UWA, Digital Renaissance Editions)
  • Mark Houlahan (Waikato, Internet Shakespeare)
  • Patricia Pender (Newcastle, Australia, The Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing)
  • Sarah Ross (Massey, Women Poets of the English Civil War and The Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing)
  • Paul Salzman (La Trobe, The Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing)
  • Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford, Women Poets of the English Civil War)
  • Rosalind Smith (Newcastle, Australia, The Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing)

Paper Submissions:

Contact Sarah Ross (S.C.Ross@massey.ac.nz) with paper proposals and abstracts (150-200 words), before 30 April 2012.

The Louis Marder Shakespeare Centre Scholarship – Call For Applications

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
The Louis Marder Shakespeare Centre Scholarship

Deadline for submissions: Monday 23 April.

Are you studying Shakespeare at college, university, or for leisure? Are you going to be using the archives or library of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust? You might be interested in applying for the Louis Marder Shakespeare Centre Scholarship (or recommending it to a friend).

This annual scholarship of £1,000 will be awarded to ‘a worthy Shakespearian currently pursuing a Ph.D. or similar study, who pledges to produce an original, publishable article on a previously approved literary, historical, or biographical topic about William Shakespeare (as opposed to character analysis or authorship studies) from The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library or Archives, approved by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s assigned authorities, within two years of the accepted funds. The intent of the award is to inspire, stimulate, and promote archival scholarship.’ Think of it as an opportunity to come to Stratford and spending a few weeks working in our reading room at the Shakespeare Centre. Since our library and archive include at least 55,000 books devoted to Shakespeare’s work, life, and times, and hundreds of thousands of documents relating to the genesis and evolution of Stratford-upon-Avon 400 years before and 400 years after Shakespeare, there’s plenty to immerse yourself in! And then there is the archive of The Royal Shakespeare Company from 1879 to the present day, and other special theatre collections, too.

If you are interested in applying, you should submit a letter of intent that states what your project is, how it relates to the collections of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, what you expect to accomplish, how you expect to pursue it, some details about your own personal credentials (previous publications, experience with historical documents, for example your ability to read Elizabethan handwriting, etc.), and the names of the principal archives and libraries where you are expecting to work. The scholarship wants to award work which is novel, original, enlightening, or biographically and historically exciting.

Send your letter of application to education1@shakespeare.org.uk, clearly marked The Louis Marder Shakespeare Centre Scholarship. The deadline for submissions is Monday 23 April. The winner will be informed on Tuesday 15 May.

More details about the scholarship can be found at the following entry at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust blog, Blogging Shakespeare: http://bloggingshakespeare.com/louis-marder.

Renaissance – Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Renaissance
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
9 Dec 2011 – 9 April 2012

Exhibition Website

For the first time the National Gallery of Australia will give visitors the opportunity to experience Early and High Renaissance paintings by many of the greatest Italian artists. Raphael, Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Bellini and Titian are some of the painters represented in our summer exhibition, which reveals an amazing gamut of talent and creative splendour. More than 70 works on canvas and wood panel will be on display only in Canberra.

These treasures are on loan from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy. Borrowing from its marvellous collection is only possible because the Accademia is renovating its display spaces, and the museum is temporarily closed.

The exhibition is open until: 9 April 2012.

Australian Association For Byzantine Studies XVII Biennial Conference – Call For Papers

Byzantium, Its Neighbours And Its Cultures: Diversity And Interaction
Australian Association For Byzantine Studies XVII Biennial Conference
Macquarie University, New South Wales, Australia
20-21 July 2012

Conference Website

Registration is now open; the call for papers has been extended to: 30 April.

Our understanding of Byzantium’s external and internal interactions has shifted significantly as a result of recent scholarship. The significance of this state to a millennium of developments throughout Eurasia has been examined; more importantly, the nature of contacts between Byzantium and its Eurasian neighbours has been reconceived. Models for understanding Byzantium’s interactions with its neighbours have moved from imperial centre and periphery, to ‘commonwealth’, to ‘overlapping circles’, to parallel and mutual developments in political and cultural identity. The Byzantine millennium now seems more connected, by commerce, diplomacy and common cultural heritage, than before. Artefacts and ideologies were acquired, appropriated or mediated amongst Byzantium and its neighbours in the Latin West, southeastern and central Europe, Iran and Dar al-Islam; even prolonged conflict did not preclude exchanges and indeed sometimes sprang from shared developments. At the same time, what we think of as the distinctively Byzantine milieu of Constantinople also interacted with regional cultures that at various times formed part of its empire. Coptic and Syriac cultures in Late Antiquity, Latin and Arabic regions in later periods, displayed both ambivalence and engagement with the culture of Constantinople and with its imperial and ecclesiastical leaders. As with Byzantium’s external connections, ‘centre and periphery’ models of internal interactions are giving way to more dynamic models seeing metropolis and regions as parts of broader, common developments. The conference aims to explore these developments.

Keynote Speaker:

Professor Jonathan Shepard, University of Cambridge, former Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Selwyn College and of Peterhouse.

The Biennial General Meeting of the Association will be held during the conference.

Abstracts:

Papers exploring any aspect of cultural and political interactions between Byzantium and its neighbours, or within regions of the Byzantine empire, are invited. Abstracts of up to 300 words for papers of 20 minutes’ duration should be sent by 30 April to: AABS2012@mq.edu.au

Postgraduate and Post-doctoral Conference Bursaries:

The AABS committee will give a limited number of bursaries of $500 each to postgraduate and postdoctoral members of AABS from outside Sydney who wish to present a paper. Please send an application letter with details of your circumstances along with your abstract to: AABS2012@mq.edu.au.

Blood, Sweat, Tears & Beyond: Precious Bodily Fluids in the Late Middle Ages – An International Conference at SAIMS

Blood, Sweat, Tears & Beyond: Precious Bodily Fluids in the Late Middle Ages
An International Conference at SAIMS (St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies)
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Saturday, April 21 2012

Conference Website

Bodily fluids usually belong neatly contained in the body. When they leak out, they often accompany strong emotions. These emotions surrounded the blood, sweat and tears of Christ’s Passion, as well as the blood shed at saints’ martyrdoms generally. Stories of body fluids also accompany the loving and tender emotions of the Virgin Mary, who not only suckled her son (as a sign of her compassion/nurturing), but also famously baptised St Bernard with her own breast milk, thereby allaying his doubt of her reality. Saints often left fluids behind: Christ himself drenched the whole of the Holy Land with his bloody footsteps, and even the place where Mary washed Jesus’ diapers was a stop along the pilgrimage route. Bodily fluids were also conduits of empathy: while Mary Magdalene, Peter, David, and others shed tears of penitence, devotees in turn shed tears in imitation of them.  Some fluids were collected in vials and others were mopped up with textiles and enshrined as relics, thereby mediating between filthy stain and sacred trace.

Recent scholarship, including Wonderful Blood by Caroline Bynum, Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture: The Devil in the Latrine by Martha Bayless, as well as further studies on material Christianity, have brought attention to these substances. Fluids had a particular property unlike that of other relics: they could wash over the faithful. This conference will bring together new scholarship from some leading medievalists from North America, the Continent, and the UK, who will discuss topics such as the faithful who bathed in the blood fountain, animated sculptures that leaked blood as a spectacle, debates around excrement and other emissions, pilgrims who visited the Virgin’s breast milk, and votaries who demonstrated their compassion by crying over their prayer books or deposited their bodily secretions as they kissed and licked images.

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Thomas Lentes, ‘Rains of Blood and Rains of Crosses. Sign Reading and a Crisis of Interpretation around 1500
  • Bettina Bildhauer, ‘Fragile containers: Blood and the body in late medieval culture’
  • Marlene Hennessy, ‘Blood Abstraction: London, British Library, MS Egerton 1821’
  • Kimberley-Joy Knight, ‘Droplets of Heaven: Tear Relics in the Thirteenth Century’
  • Beate Fricke, title TBA
  • Martha Bayless, ‘The devil is a bodily fluid’

Please note that registration is free and student bursaries are available.

For more details please visit the conference website:  http://www-ah.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/BloodSweatTearsandBeyond/

Women in Shakespeare: A Post-Feminist Scrutiny – Call For Papers

Women in Shakespeare: A Post-Feminist Scrutiny

4-6 October, 2012
Kota, Rajasthan, India

Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University, Kota, Rajasthan (India) and The Shakespeare Association (India) invite scholars to participate in the three- day International Conference (4-6 October, 2012) on Women in Shakespeare: A Post-Feminist Scrutiny including the issues of ‘representations’, ‘intentions’ and ‘interpretations’ as raising from or questioned in Shakespeare’s work.

We invite contributions that explore the theme ‘Women in Shakespeare: A Post-Feminist Scrutiny’, including but not limited to papers which focus on the following sub-themes:

  • Feminism and its discontents.
  • Feminist Reading of Shakespeare’s Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Romances, or any individual play.
  • History of critical shifts to women in Shakespeare.
  • Where does Feminism go wrong in its interpretation of Shakespeare?
  • Categories and classes of women in Shakespeare from the viewpoint of Feminism.
  • Can we spell out the tenets of post-feminist approach to Shakespeare?
  • Why Shakespeare defies all-theoretical approaches including Feminism?
  • Feminist interpretation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Rape of Lucrece, or Venus and Adonis.
  • Looking for difference between Shakespeare’s depiction of women in history and his own view of women.
  • Shakespeare and the Renaissance view of woman.

Important dates:

  • Abstract Submission Deadline: March 31, 2012
  • Notification of Acceptance: April 15, 2012
  • Full Paper Submission: August 31, 2012

Abstract submissions should include the following information

  1. Author’s full name and designation
  2. Author’s affiliation and address
  3. E-mail contact address
  4. Title of the paper
  5. Abstract (up to 250 words)
  6. Please send your abstract in Times New Roman. After the review committee recommendations the selected abstracts will be intimated through email.

Please email abstracts to: kchaudhary@vmou.ac.in

For more details including registration and accommodation please visit the conference website: http://www.vmou.ac.in/WomeninShakespeare.asp

For enquiries and communication, please contact:

Prof. B.S.Dahiya
President, Shakespeare Association (India)
bhimsinghdahiya@gmail.com

Dr. Kshamata Chaudhary
Organising Secretary, VMOU, Kota
kchaudhary@vmou.ac.in

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination – App Download

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (11 Nov-13 March) is the British Library’s first major exhibition to bring together the Library’s Royal collection, a treasure trove of illuminated manuscripts collected by the kings and queens of England between the 9th and 16th centuries. To coincide with the exhibition an app has been created by the British Library (in collaboration with Toura) for use on iPhone, Android, and iPad devices.

The Royal Manuscripts application features:

  • 58 manuscripts from the exhibition, each with interpretive text
  • 500 high-resolution manuscript images of some of the best surviving examples of medieval painting in England, including many pages not on display in the exhibition
  • 6 expert curator videos exploring the history and details of the manuscripts
  • Functionality to star your favourite items and view them together in one place

Selected manuscripts include colourful histories and genealogies, Bibles and Psalters, scientific works and accounts of coronations.

Highlights include:

  • Book of Hours made for Margaret Beauchamp (great-grandmother of Henry VIII)
  • Henry VIII’s Psalter, commissioned and annotated by the king himself
  • Maps of an itinerary from London to Apulia and to the Holy Land
  • Shrewsbury book, presented to Margaret of Anjou on her marriage to Henry VI in 1445

Royal Manuscripts is available for download world-wide for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Costs are outlined below:

Royal Manuscripts – Standard edition

  • From the iTunes App Store for iPhone (and iPod Touch): UK £2.99 (US $4.99)
  • From the Android Marketplace: UK £2.99 (US $4.99)

Royal Manuscripts – HD

  • From the iTunes App Store for iPad: UK £3.99 (US $5.99)
  • From the Android Marketplace: UK £3.99 (US $5.99)

For more information and to download the App visit the Royal Manuscripts App website: http://www.bl.uk/app/royal.html

    Ninth Annual Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo en Najera – Call For Papers

    Ninth Annual Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo en Nájera
    To Be Woman in the European Medieval City
    Fundación de Caja Rioja en Nájera. Calle Yuso 3-5. Nájera, Spain.
    July 24-27, 2012

    Conference Website

    In 2004 the Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo en Nájera was established as an academic forum on medievalism. Held annually in Nájera in the “Rioja Alta” region of La Rioja, Spain, this international meeting brings together experts from around the globe, and aims to contribute to the knowledge and review of medieval history through lively, critical debate.

    The Ninth Annual Los Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo en Nájera will focus on the role of the woman in the medieval cities, on topics such as: family, culture, work, exclusion and power.

    For more information on the meeting, please see the Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo en Nájera website: www.neim.unican.es.

    Abstract submissions should be submitted via e-mail (solorzaja@unican.es) as a Word document, before 4th May 2012.

    The languages of the conference are: Spanish, English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese.

    The program and call for papers, is available to view online here.

    Please direct any queries to:

    Jesús Á. Solórzano Telechea
    Universidad de Cantabria
    Facultad de Filosofía y Letras.
    Av. de los Castros s/n. 39005.
    Santander. España (Spain).
    Tel: (0034) 942202015
    Fax: (0034) 942201203
    medieval@aytonajera.es

    I Tatti Prize for Best Essay by a Junior Scholar – Call For Applications

    Villa I Tatti – The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is pleased to announce an annual prize for the best scholarly essay on an Italian Renaissance topic. The author must have obtained a PhD within the last five years. The essay must have been published in English or Italian during the previous calendar year, as either an article in a journal or a chapter in an edited volume. The subject can be any aspect of the Italian Renaissance, broadly defined as the period ranging from the 13th to the 17th centuries; essays could also address historiography.

    The selection committee will look for rigorous and original research, and convincing results expressed in clear and effective prose. The winning article or essay will be posted on our website, and the author will receive $1,000.

    Guidelines:

    1. Applicants must have received a PhD, dottorato di ricerca or equivalent, in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012.  Authors of short-listed essays will be asked to provide proof of their PhD. Doctoral candidates who have not received their certificate by 30 June 2012 are not eligible.  Applicants must register for a user account before gaining access to the application.
    2. For articles, please include the title of the journal, volume number, and page range. For chapters, pleased include the title of the volume, name of the editor(s), publisher, city of publication, and page range. Only texts printed in 2011 are eligible; in many journals, the date of printing differs from the date found on the cover or title page. Authors of short-listed essays will be asked to provide proof of the printing date, usually found at the beginning or end of a journal or volume.
    3. The maximum length of an essay is 10,000 words, not including notes or bibliography.
    4. Current employees of I Tatti, or appointees from academic years 2011/12 or 2012/13 are not eligible. Essays published by I Tatti are not eligible.

    For more details and to apply, visit the I Tatti Prize website: http://itatti.harvard.edu/research/i-tatti-prize-best-essay-junior-scholar